World-saving habits

That's us, the most selfish species ever to disease the planet.

If you think you don't make a difference, try storing all your trash in your yard instead of sending it out of sight and out of mind. All right, better just imagine it instead: By the end of the year your whole backyard would be full of your waste.

To make a difference, you don't have to grow your hair long and stop brushing it. You don't have to parade the streets with signs and chain yourself to trees and bulldozers. Here are some little things all of us can do now to save the world. And what could be more important than that?

Find a recycling site near you (try the Yellow Pages). Separate your garbage at home into glass, plastic, aluminum and paper (a bin for each), and then just drop it off every so often. Don't buy things that can't be recycled. Check the labels. It should say "recyclable." And even better, buy products that have been made from recycled material.

Don't buy overpackaged products. Buy in bulk when you can, and reuse what you can first (jars, bags, etc.).

Did somebody say McDonalds? To produce hamburger meat, one cow is fed enough grain to feed ten people. Of the 145 million tons of grain and soy used for your burgers (70 percent of all grain produced is for meat cows), only 21 million tons of meat is used, wasting 124 million tons per year and $21 billion, enough to feed, clothe, and house the world's entire population for the year. Nothing is more wasteful than the meat industry, which also causes an area of rainforest the size of Britain to be cut down and burnt every year.

Cut off junk mail to your house. One hundred million trees are cut down each year in the U.S. for junk mail alone, although most of it seems to end up at my house. Turn off lights and water you're not using, adjust your appliances, and use money-saving devices on things like faucets and toilets (aerators and special shower heads, for instance). Use fluorescent lightbulbs. Within one fluorescent bulb's life (up to 10,000 hours) it will stop 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide from going into the air, if it's substituted for the traditional bulb, which uses three times the energy. Your electricity and water bills could go down by about $40 a year.

Bring your own reusable cloth bags to the grocery store instead of using their paper or plastic, which produce millions of tons of waste, and release toxins into the ground. Stay away from disposable products like diapers. Americans throw away enough diapers each year (over 18 billion) that lining them up could reach the Moon and back 7 times. They take over 500 years to decompose, and with them goes 3 million tons of untreated feces and urine into the ground, where it can seep into our groundwater (over 100 different diseases are known to be excreted in human feces).

More than 2 million tons of oil are deposited in our rivers every year. When your oil is changed, make sure it's recycled or disposed of safely. Don't be afraid to ask merchants.

Don't use products until you know they're safe. Don't use things like fox urine or insecticides as repellents in your garden. Look into things and find out where they come from. For instance, don't buy wooden furniture from a tropical nation.

Such little things really do add up. That's how everything is getting screwed up in the first place. We all add up to produce disaster, so we can add up to undo it too.

Never mind the fact that most of us humans are too absorbed in our own petty little worlds that we couldn't care less what happens to our own children and grandchildren. Start with yourself and work your way up, showing other people by example.